The
Arctic contains much of the natural methane on Earth, trapped in
permafrost and under the seafloor. As temperatures in the region
rise, this powerful greenhouse gas is being slowly released, first
into the ocean and eventually reaching the atmosphere.

In
this press conference, researchers will reveal how structures such as
giant craters signal marine methane release, and what high
concentrations of methane might mean for seafloor
fauna.

Craters
up to a kilometer (0.6 miles) wide have been found within the Barents
Sea off the northern coast of Norway. As reported by the Sunday
Times, these are likely to be due to unstable build-ups of methane, a
notoriously volatile and at times explosive natural gas. Details are
few and far between at present, although researchers at the Arctic
University of Norway are due to present their findings in detail at
the annual European Geoscience Union conference this coming April.

“Multiple
giant craters exist on the sea floor in an area in the west-central
Barents Sea... and are probably a cause of enormous blowouts of gas,”
the research team told the Sunday Times. “The crater area is likely
to represent one of the largest hotspots for shallow marine methane
release in the Arctic.” Although these huge methane bubbles could
perhaps take out a ship or two sailing in these shallow waters, the
links that several journalistic outlets are making with the Bermuda
Triangle may be a bit of a stretch.

Methane
under certain conditions is stored as a compound known as methane
hydrate. Vast caches of it are found both beneath the seabed and in
great expanses of long-term snow – known as permafrost – within
tundra climates, particularly in Siberia and Alaska.

Due
to man-made climate change, the world is warming at an unprecedented
rate, which is beginning to unlock these caches. Melting permafrost
unleashes methane gas, the second-most dangerous global warming
greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere, causing it to warm further.
Within the oceans, the hydrates are becoming increasingly unstable
due to both warming and increasing acidification.

If
an entire “chunk” of these hydrates suddenly becomes unstable, a
lot of methane gas can escape at once. This can generate craters,
such as those found beneath the surface of the Barents Sea. It’s
difficult to estimate how much energy is being released in these
crater forming “explosions,” but it’s not unreasonable to
suggest that – at over half a mile across each – they could be
energetic enough to sink ships passing above them.

This
methane forcing itself up from the depths has likely happened before,
around 56 million years ago. The Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum
(PETM) was a sudden and catastrophic warming event that bumped up the
world’s temperature by 5 to 8°C (9 to 15°F) in just 20,000 years,
and researchers have thought that a massive methane hydrates release
is to blame.

However,
the link with the Bermuda
Triangle,
which is off the eastern coast of Florida, is somewhat tenuous –
this study doesn’t appear to have anything to do with this part of
the world. Nevertheless, gargantuan methane bubbles have been cited
before as a possible
ship-sinking phenomenon in
the Triangle. Even if they don’t cause a damaging blast, a methane
bubble is considerably less dense than the sea around it; if it rises
up beneath a ship, it could cause it to suddenly sink.

There’s
just one problem with this: The Bermuda Triangle doesn’t
officially exist,
in that it’s not recognized by various scientific institutions of
the United States. It’s statistically no more dangerous than any
other stretch of ocean, and perhaps most importantly of all, there
has been no methane bubbling up from beneath it for at
least 15,000 years.

A
TRAWLER found at the bottom of the North Sea may have sunk after
being trapped in a giant gas bubble.

Scientists
from the University of Sunderland discovered the fishing boat off
Aberdeen, 450ft below the surface, on a patch of sea bed known as
Witch's Hole.

They think the crew were the victims of a rare and
terrifying phenomenon.

Methane
gas bubbling up from the seabed reduces the density of water to a
point where a trawler can no longer float, said Alan Judd, a marine
geologist who led the investigation. He said: "Any ship caught
above would sink as if it were in a lift shaft. No trace of the
vessel or its crew would remain. Even those who jumped overboard in
lifejackets would sink.

Pictures
from a robot submarine showed that the 75ft vessel, built between
about 1890 and 1930, had suffered little damage and gone down
horizontally. A report of how the trawler was found, shrouded in
fishing nets, appears in New Scientist today.